Jokes for folks who sing along to both TOOL and Gordon Lightfoot in the car.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Half-Assery Abounds

We are at the point in our DIY adventure where it feels like we'll never see the finish line...who knew five rooms could have so much trim to prime, sand, putty, paint, and re-paint? The tedium is exhausting, and I'm battling a strong urge to do a totally half-assed job. My wrists have told me in no uncertain terms that they are not in their twenties any longer. Unfortunately, J has suddenly become more detail-oriented than a Swiss watch maker, re-puttying nail holes I filled yesterday, insisting on sanding and re-painting when I think it's just fine.

We also realized that we have no stairwell clearance for a new queen-sized mattress, so we had to break down and order a spendy Sleep-Number bed, sight-unseen. My heart still hasn't recovered from that unexpected additional expense. Also, we've never even tried one out! We just bought the mattress, one easy online click, because we knew we'd be able to get it up our steps. Just another one of the many joys of living in a 125-year old house built when people and their dreams were much, much shorter.

I console myself with the knowledge that in three weeks, we'll be able to stop sleeping in the living room, stop living like hoarders, and move back upstairs to sleep on a REAL (Sleep-Number) bed again.

Things I've learned during this remodeling project:

If your floor leveling compound is lumpy when you pour it on the floor, you did something wrong. Perhaps God is angry at you.

Open a few windows when you're priming walls and ceilings, unless you don't really want the brain cells dedicated to math and/or critical thinking.

When your vanity counter top for some reason fails to overhang the vanity cabinet, it looks like shit. Get your husband to glue some kind of jerry-rigged pieces of plastic he found at work to the backsplash. Nobody will know.

There are always more cracked stair treads beneath the old carpeting than the one you are aware of.

Don't paint yourself into a corner, get up to date on your Tetanus shots, and buy a humane bark collar for your dog. Your contractors will thank you.